changing phones = not easy

Grazuncle · Oct 28, 2019

well better than expected but my decision to buy my wife a new version of her old Sony XA phone has taken up most of the day...

many things went better after connecting the two with the 'OK Google' copy my device' assistance. But.. remembering to upload WhatsApp first.. or you get the last back up.. I did a straight copy of the old MSD card to a larger one and no photos are sorted, in Album, by date anymore.. just a mess.

Getting icons in the same place (my wife has OCD)

And lastly i cant sort this one out.. of the four pages where you can 'normally' put whatever you like on them or delete unwanted apps; the extreme left page is populated already with a smaller Google search bar and some social news section tha scrolls forever... How on earth do you reclaim that?

I can't seem to press/hold anything o the page.. it is like it is all permanent. Even large widgets can be deleted/moved.. but this?

Any pointers?

MoodyBlues · Oct 28, 2019

Grazuncle said:
of the four pages where you can 'normally' put whatever you like on them or delete unwanted apps; the extreme left page is populated already with a smaller Google search bar and some social news section tha scrolls forever... How on earth do you reclaim that?

Just FYI, four screens may be your device's default, but you can have more or less than that; I currently have 7, after deciding 9 was overkill. This and your problem can all be dealt with by using a different launcher.

If you're not open to that, someone else will have to help. But if you're willing to give it a try, my default is ADW Launcher 2; I have the paid version, and it's well worth its price, to me. There are many other launchers in the Play Store, so you might want to try a few before settling on one as your default.

lunatic59 · Oct 28, 2019

Grazuncle said:
the extreme left page is populated already with a smaller Google search bar and some social news section tha scrolls forever

I've noticed this with Samsung and Google (Pixel) launchers where they seem to think that everyone wants a news feed with a left swipe from the home screen. Yeah, no. I don't know which launcher Sony uses or if there's a setting to turn that off, but the easiest way to fix it is to switch launchers. When @MoodyBlues is done hawking ADW you might try Nova, too.

Grazuncle · Oct 28, 2019

MoodyBlues said:
Just FYI, four screens may be your device's default, but you can have more or less than that; I currently have 7, after deciding 9 was overkill. This and your problem can all be dealt with by using a different launcher.

If you're not open to that, someone else will have to help. But if you're willing to give it a try, my default is ADW Launcher 2; I have the paid version, and it's well worth its price, to me. There are many other launchers in the Play Store, so you might want to try a few before settling on one as your default.

Thanks for replying.

She is not bothered about only 4 pages.. Just that the first one is populated and not obvious how to clear it as you can with the others pages and app icons

Thanks

MoodyBlues · Oct 28, 2019

lunatic59 said:
When @MoodyBlues is done hawking ADW you might try Nova, too.

Bwaaaaahh!

MoodyBlues · Oct 28, 2019

Grazuncle said:
Thanks for replying.

You're welcome.

She is not bothered about only 4 pages..

I mentioned it because some people don't know.

Just that the first one is populated and not obvious how to clear it as you can with the others pages and app icons

See above! A different launcher will solve that problem--and it will offer a plethora of cool features.

Grazuncle · Oct 29, 2019

Well.. I didn't know this...!!!!

Not only can you add pages to your phone ..you can delete them too! On a stock Sony phone. This solves the whole thing about getting rid of the populated page. You can also have up to twenty pages on this phone!

https://support.sonymobile.com/global-en/xperiaxa1/userguide/home-screen/#gref

You can elect which page is Home too.

I tried it on my (two page only) restricted Acer tablet (stock) but it won't do the same things as mentioned in the link above.. Oh well.. at least there is more space on the tablet.

Grazuncle · Oct 29, 2019

Grazuncle said:
Well.. I didn't know this...!!!!

Not only can you add pages to your phone ..you can delete them too! On a stock Sony phone. This solves the whole thing about getting rid of the populated page. You can also have up to twenty pages on this phone!

https://support.sonymobile.com/global-en/xperiaxa1/userguide/home-screen/#gref

You can elect which page is Home too.

I tried it on my (two page only) restricted Acer tablet (stock) but it won't do the same things as mentioned in the link above.. Oh well.. at least there is more space on the tablet.

well (again) it seems the media page is reserved... just have learn to keep away from it. I added two more pages and she have what she wants on them.

Oh well.. a learning curve.

Ps

Still don't know how to fix the messed up images (they were in taking order, dated on the old phone) that are now messed up in order (probable because they files have a new copied dated on them? I could put the old slow Micro SD but I thought the newer, larger and faster SD would be better.

Hadron · Oct 29, 2019

How did you copy them to the new card? Most file copy systems have an option to preserve the date of the file, though it's not the default. Can't help with Windows, as I don't use it much.

Grazuncle · Oct 29, 2019

Hadron said:
How did you copy them to the new card? Most file copy systems have an option to preserve the date of the file, though it's not the default. Can't help with Windows, as I don't use it much.

Thanks. I'll look into that. So have the original card so worth trying

svim · Oct 29, 2019

Migrating an entire user's profile with user installed apps and their respective settings/configurations from one phone to another isn't an Android strong point. There can be pretty significant alterations with basic user interfaces (launchers and the Settings menu), along with underlying file structures between phones from different manufacturers/carriers and different versions of Android.
You can keep experimenting with different utilities that claim to be able to transfer one setup to another but given the often arbitrary differences all the commercial players use to keep their own products unique, you might find if a lot less hassle to just re-configure the new phone from scratch, or since it sounds like you still have the old phone just go screen by screen and set each of those four screens in the new phone to match up with the corresponding fours screens in the old phone. This probably will involve some compromises as there will be features and unavoidable changes in the user interfaces of the two phones.
In accordance with her OCD tendencies, hopefully within a short period of time she'll just get accustomed to the new phone. Getting the new phone to look and work exactly like the old phone is a bit of a tall order.
Or give some serious thought to moving to an iPhone. While there are of course differences in the user interface over time, it's more of a unified, gradual change with iOS and since Apple maintains strict curation over the hardware and software aspects, something like migrating from one phone to another is much more seamless.

Grazuncle · Oct 29, 2019

svim said:
Migrating an entire user's profile with user installed apps and their respective settings/configurations from one phone to another isn't an Android strong point. There can be pretty significant alterations with basic user interfaces (launchers and the Settings menu), along with underlying file structures between phones from different manufacturers/carriers and different versions of Android.
You can keep experimenting with different utilities that claim to be able to transfer one setup to another but given the often arbitrary differences all the commercial players use to keep their own products unique, you might find if a lot less hassle to just re-configure the new phone from scratch, or since it sounds like you still have the old phone just go screen by screen and set each of those four screens in the new phone to match up with the corresponding fours screens in the old phone. This probably will involve some compromises as there will be features and unavoidable changes in the user interfaces of the two phones.
In accordance with her OCD tendencies, hopefully within a short period of time she'll just get accustomed to the new phone. Getting the new phone to look and work exactly like the old phone is a bit of a tall order.
Or give some serious thought to moving to an iPhone. While there are of course differences in the user interface over time, it's more of a unified, gradual change with iOS and since Apple maintains strict curation over the hardware and software aspects, something like migrating from one phone to another is much more seamless.

Thoughtful comments.. appreciate that.

Ironically the suggestion of the new Sony to use 'OK Google.. connect my device' did more of the important things for her, than I had expected.. obscure apps working straightaway, for example.

but you are right a fresh phone and complete fresh install is the perfect way..

I have a new phone coming myself in about a week and am more prepared for mine that i would have been.

MoodyBlues · Oct 29, 2019

Grazuncle said:
Well.. I didn't know this...!!!!

Cool, eh? And it's fun learning new things, isn't it? I know I do every day.

Grazuncle said:
well (again) it seems the media page is reserved... just have learn to keep away from it.

It'd be gone if you used a different launcher. Just saying.

I did a straight copy of the old MSD card to a larger one and no photos are sorted, in Album, by date anymore.. just a mess.

Still don't know how to fix the messed up images (they were in taking order, dated on the old phone) that are now messed up in order (probable because they files have a new copied dated on them?

Your mentioning the word 'album' suggests to me that, on the original device, photos were managed by software that was configured to create albums and sort chronologically. On my computers, for use with my Nikon cameras, I use digiKam, and have it configured to automatically create date-named subdirectories, named per my choice of naming convention, and place photos in their appropriate subdirectory, all based on the creation date in their EXIF info.

I only use Linux, and don't know if digiKam is available for any other OS, but even if it's not, something similar may do the trick for you, reading each image's EXIF information to determine the date. This can also easily be done at a Linux command line--automatically: read the info, create the directory [when needed], copy the photo there.

Again, I can't speak for windows....although, I was reminded recently of a tool I've used extensively over the years, ImageMagick, and it's available for other OSes. There's definitely a learning curve, and it would have to be used in conjunction with a script [to do parts like create directories]. Easy on Linux; don't know about windows.

The thing to look for/keep in mind regarding re-sorting the images is to use their EXIF data, not their date-stamp, to determine their date and place them accordingly.

Grazuncle · Oct 30, 2019

svim said:
Migrating an entire user's profile with user installed apps and their respective settings/configurations from one phone to another isn't an Android strong point. There can be pretty significant alterations with basic user interfaces (launchers and the Settings menu), along with underlying file structures between phones from different manufacturers/carriers and different versions of Android.
You can keep experimenting with different utilities that claim to be able to transfer one setup to another but given the often arbitrary differences all the commercial players use to keep their own products unique, you might find if a lot less hassle to just re-configure the new phone from scratch, or since it sounds like you still have the old phone just go screen by screen and set each of those four screens in the new phone to match up with the corresponding fours screens in the old phone. This probably will involve some compromises as there will be features and unavoidable changes in the user interfaces of the two phones.
In accordance with her OCD tendencies, hopefully within a short period of time she'll just get accustomed to the new phone. Getting the new phone to look and work exactly like the old phone is a bit of a tall order.
Or give some serious thought to moving to an iPhone. While there are of course differences in the user interface over time, it's more of a unified, gradual change with iOS and since Apple maintains strict curation over the hardware and software aspects, something like migrating from one phone to another is much more seamless.

Your correct svim.. I did a sear4ch and there is an unknown to me, commandline function Robocopy.. thought it was a joke at first .. Robocop

https://www.jiho.com/en/tips/copy-files-without-changing-date-stamp.html

I'll try it later.. not as easy as drag and drop but you can't have everything.

svim · Oct 30, 2019

Just something to keep in mind. Robocopy being a Windows utility note, that you're working with two very different operating systems. Using Windows to transfer/manage files and folders remotely on an Android device, there will be multiple issues with file metadata differences between the two platforms so don't be surprised when there are missing or corrupted file content management problems; Windows not being able to support the same file and folder permissions used by Android will result in issues using something like Windows Explorer (GUI), or Robocopy's CLI interface, to manage files and folders in an Android file system. If you're averse to using an Android file manager apps instead (it's a native utility running locally), look at using Windows to manage any Android device as a matter of convenience.

Grazuncle · Oct 30, 2019

svim said:
Just something to keep in mind. Robocopy being a Windows utility note, that you're working with two very different operating systems. Using Windows to transfer/manage files and folders remotely on an Android device, there will be multiple issues with file metadata differences between the two platforms so don't be surprised when there are missing or corrupted file content management problems; Windows not being able to support the same file and folder permissions used by Android will result in issues using something like Windows Explorer (GUI), or Robocopy's CLI interface, to manage files and folders in an Android file system. If you're averse to using an Android file manager apps instead (it's a native utility running locally), look at using Windows to manage any Android device as a matter of convenience.

Thanks. I was intending to copy from one to the other in my Windows Pc.. Not across to the phone connected to the Pc via USB
Makes a difference?

Won't harm the original microSD will it?

svim · Oct 30, 2019

It's not going to 'harm' anything but always take into account that Windows and Android are two different platforms. Their respective operating systems are functionally dissimilar and they both rely upon very different file systems (Windows uses NTFS, Android uses ext4). So using one to do any kind of file/folder management on the other will always be a matter of compromises, kluges, and work-arounds. Expect things like embedded images (album art) in audio files to be deleted or corrupt as things like how metadata is handled differently, or some files (especially executable) or folders will be an issue as the permissions levels used in Android are not going to apply to that same data when stored on a Windows drive (they should be retained once back on a different Android device but again, the file structure differences between the two platforms isn't going to guarantee anything).

MoodyBlues · Oct 30, 2019

Grazuncle said:
Your correct svim.. I did a sear4ch and there is an unknown to me, commandline function Robocopy.. thought it was a joke at first .. Robocop

https://www.jiho.com/en/tips/copy-files-without-changing-date-stamp.html

I'll try it later.. not as easy as drag and drop but you can't have everything.

Yes, you can. Use Linux.

Not only does its built-in commands for moving or copying files allow you to retain the original date, so do its graphical file managers. Nothing to search for, nothing to download from some random place, just built-in tools.

changing phones = not easy

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